"Fun fun fun! But...is it Resident Evil?"

I have been a fan of Resident Evil for a long time. My favorite game in the series is Code Veronica X...though I'm quite partial to the first Resident Evil...though I love the REmake. Outbreak is also lots of fun. Bottom line, I'm a huge RE fan...so when this game was close to being released, I said to myself "MUST GET! SMASH ALL WHO OPPOSE!" So I ended up getting Gamestop's special Collector's Edition. So I hurry and pop in the game and already it was awesome. I love the games new mechanics and its just fun. It's the only Resident Evil game I've played that made me want to play again immediately after I finished it the first time. There is...however, one major problem. I will discuss it later.

Graphics (10): GREAT! The graphics are AMAZING! Though the pre-rendered backgrounds from REmake and RE0 look better, the overall environment in this game looks stunning and the character models are the best I've seen. The graphics in the game are good enough to rival anything X-Box has to offer.

Sound (10): Put this game through surround sound. Now. It sounds THAT good. The voice acting is perfect and the music fits the mood entirely whenever you're about to fight or just exploring an area. The weapons sound realistic as well as the grunts made after shooting a villager. Speaking of the villagers, they all speak Spanish...so if you know Spanish, then that makes the experience in this game even better since you can understand everything said in this game.

Game Play (10): While I miss the old way of playing Resident Evil, these new over-the-shoulder view, laser aiming, A-button action move mechanics are just...well...fun. However it doesn't make you feel like you're playing a Resident Evil game, but thats ok. It just takes one really good way of playing and replaces it with another really good way of playing. Also, rather than finding most weapons, you find money and buy them from a merchant that seems to follow you around. Also, as I said before, you aim with a laser, so you can shoot anywhere you'd like on the body of your enemy. Your item case starts fairly big too so you can hold a lot of things and you can continue making its size larger, so there's no more six-slotted equipment pack and storing items in item boxes. You either take it or leave it. I also would like to add that there is really no backtracking in this game and the puzzles are rare and easy, so this game is more action-based rather than puzzle. However, that makes this more of a run-around-blasting-stuff game than a survival horror....but its still fun. On that note, this game isn't really scary and I don't consider it a survival horror. Its still really fun though.

Storyline (7): Here's the flaw I wanted to explain earlier. This game doesn't feel like Resident Evil at all. If you're hoping for this game to continue the story from the old Resident Evil games, you're wrong. Very very wrong. The only times this game talks about anything from the past story is during the prologue of the game discussing what happened to Umbrella. There is some talk about Umbrella and even Wesker during this game, but its very brief. In short, the storyline in this game has nothing to do with the regular Resident Evil plot whatsoever. All that aside, the background story of THIS game is fairly complex at the beginning. But once you learn about whats going on (which happens fairly early) there's not much else to know except filling in a gap here or there done by documents found. So if you want to play this game for the sheer fact of trying to continue the RE story, you better wait for the next RE game. Other than that, the story isn't bad and the game-play is just awesome.

Summary: This game has gotten equal or higher ratings than some of the top games out right now, including Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas. The reviews were right. This game is fun and will definitely keep you playing all day and night. It'll keep you hooked. The only problem is the story and scare factor, but if you're a die-hard Resident Evil fan, I'm sure you'll love this game regardless.